


Blood Blossoms

by Cartara



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Blood Blossoms, Captured, Experiments, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Kidnapped, Mental Anguish, he'll be fine, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:55:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22016737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cartara/pseuds/Cartara
Summary: Danny wakes up, and it's clear to him he's gotta get out.And fast.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 91





	Blood Blossoms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [qlinq_qhost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/qlinq_qhost/gifts).



> this was written for the Secret Santa/Holiday Truce exchange 2019 on tumblr and can be found on my blog @beghostdocrimes.  
> originally written for @qlinq-qhost on tumblr.

**D** anny knew what pain was. **  
**

The constant bruises and muscle aches from fighting were there to prove it. The exhaustion that clung onto him and seeped into his very bones, making him want to do nothing more than to just go to bed and sleep for a month. The mental strain that showed itself in tired eyes and sleeping in class and at the dinner table. 

~~There were things he didn’t want to think about that hurt more.~~

Skulker’s continuous taunts and weird stalker behavior, Spectra’s sneers, Vlad’s constant creeping he couldn’t help but get used to somehow (which was even worse), the Observants’ supervision on his every move, Clockwork’s warnings that rang in his ears every second it was completely silent, his friends’ and sister’s worry…

And a million more things were constantly hammering in his head.

There were the easy days, on which the Box Ghost showed up maybe two or three times, or Technus decided to show his face on Tucker’s PDA at random. He had learned to take care of those within 10 and 30 minutes, respectively. Missing half a class was still better than missing a whole one, or even an entire day. Some bruises were the worst damage he got from that, though sometimes Technus managed to get him to burn himself on some electricity from one of his devices. He could deal with those.

Some days were manageable, with Skulker or Spectra showing up. He’d just try to ignore their constant yammering and focused on getting them into the Thermos asap. Skulker packed a serious punch, and Danny figured he’d at least had one sprained... _something_ every time, plus maybe a light concussion on the worst days. Spectra...did more mental damage than the others, and that pain took longer to go away. Jazz tried to help, but she didn’t understand exactly what it did to him.

He had to deal with that alone.

And then there were the hardest days. With Walker, or Vlad. Sometimes multiple at once. Walker teaming up with someone was bad no matter what, since Walker attacking included half an army of goons, all with weapons and half a brain cell each. Vlad was becoming more of a nuisance each time, but he’d created a web of alliances with all kinds of ghost from the Zone, and fighting off 5 of them at the same time wasn’t good for his body. 

The sound of a bone snapping in two as he tried to block a ghost from ramming into him still echoed in his head sometimes, and it left him nauseous every time he thought back to it. 

Sam had said he was stupid for not remembering he could literally turn untouchable, and Danny had, though sulking, agreed. He was used to the fact that he _could_ , now, unlike in the first months, but it hadn’t become an instinct yet. He was still human, and humans didn’t do that. Nor did they turn invisible or fly, but hey, those were also fun. Turning intangible just felt... _off_. Not being able to grab anything or hold onto anything weirded him out.

The ghosts he fought had their powers under control and knew them inside out. He was at a disadvantage fighting literally anyone, being just a rookie compared to everyone. Even Vlad had his intangibility under control, and he wasn’t even a full ghost. But on the other hand, if Vlad could get a hold of it all, maybe Danny could, too.

In 20 years, maybe.

Sometimes he had help during battles, sometimes he didn’t. Which was fine, because not everyone could be at his side every second of the day-- be it during school or at 3 A.M. again. Nobody had any respect for his health, or sleeping schedule, or homework.

Lancer’s disappointed yet concerned look also made Danny flinch and shrink into himself every time he saw it. Or Jazz’s worried lecture when she tried to scold him for not trying harder in school, even though she knew about the ghost fighting. His parents...didn’t do much about anything. They probably figured he was just not trying his hardest, but besides the occasional conversation with his mother about his grades, Danny was left alone.

That loneliness also hurt.

His friends understood better than anyone else, but they didn’t get the full picture. He had trouble sleeping, and they sometimes helped him see things besides the things in his nightmares, but they also had stuff besides just helping their friend sleep at night or keep him awake at school. Sometimes they couldn’t. And even though Danny knew it wasn’t their fault, and that they had a life besides and without him, but a feeling of betrayal sometimes came crashing into his head, and it kept becoming harder to get rid of it each time it came.

He had friends, allies, family, all there to back him up where they could in a situation he needed them, and everything always eventually worked out. He wasn’t leading the most normal life, but at this point, he couldn’t imagine anything different. 

Danny _thought_ he knew what pain was.

This was more…stiffening. Crawling. Agonizing. Trembling. It felt like it could burn him to ashes from inside out, or from the outside in. At this point he wasn’t sure anymore. It was suffocating, all over, and nowhere, nothing, all at once. Danny was sure it was there, because he didn’t have the imagination to make this up. It was there. But how?

The only thing that had come close to this was the pure and utter helplessness he’d felt after the Nasty Burger explosion. ~~He didn’t want to think about it, dammit.~~ But that was heavy. _Untouchable_. Not in his nerves, just in his head. Mental and physical pain were two very different things, as he’d learned the hard way. Being in expert in both gave him enough credit to state that fact.

But this, this was _everywhere_. In his bones, in his flesh, in his nerves, in his guts, in his skin, in his head, oh God his _head_ —

He couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. The continuous loop of _‘no-no-no please stop get away stop god please no more no-no-no--’_ was all his brain could muster up in that exact moment, with his nerves on fire and brain completely fried. Was he screaming? He didn’t know. Couldn’t say. Sound was nowhere, complete silence, save for the buzz in his head. It had some sort of metallic rattle to it, but that could just be the adrenaline messing with him.

Or the utter and complete panic.

How he’d ended up in this situation, where he was, who had him, and what they were going to do to him were all blanks. His parents? Jazz? Sam and Tucker? Valerie? Vlad? He didn’t know who knew he was gone from where he was supposed to be right now, and who actually _did_ know, and probably had him somewhere in a laboratory.

After seeing just what some of the creeps he’d encountered were actually prepared to do to get what they needed from their ‘subjects’, Danny wasn’t sure how to stop his imagination from running scenarios in his head. The metallic buzz mangled all the sounds even worse now, and it felt as if his throat was the driest place on the earth all of a sudden. He must’ve screamed because they amped up whatever it was they were using: raw ectoplasm, poisons, electr--

And then it just...stopped. Disappeared. It was gone, and he could _breathe_. He felt his muscles relax and his jaw unclench, and he opened his mouth to breathe. It was more of a weak pant with a rattle to it, but he took what he could at that moment. 

He stared up at the ceiling with wide and unfocused eyes, the white blinding lights all that really registered in his scrambled mind. 

So he was on his back, then.

No chambers filled with weird liquids, which was a plus. The air felt dry and fabricated in his mouth. ‘ _Basement_ ,’ Danny concluded after two minutes of just _breathing_. Outer space suddenly seemed less and less fun than it used to be, because Danny decided right then that he was quite fond of breathing and air and all that.

The buzz in his head started to fade a bit, and the sounds from around started to separate from each other. Beeps from machines, liquids boiling, a freezer humming, metals clicking together.

No people breathing.

Which meant either that one, there were no people, and he was probably being watched and examined from a distance, with fancy cameras and audio equipment and scanners and whatnot. Which was kinda cool, but also kinda freaky. Because it meant less clues for Danny on who had him.

Or, option two, they were ghosts.

Even _less_ clues as to who had him ~~this tim~~ e. Although...Vlad actually had the money to set up a whole lab, as did the Guys in White, but his parents? He couldn’t imagine them setting up a lab this...professional. Not like this, at least. They had everything they needed, but it was always a mess at home, in the basement. If Danny craned his neck, he could see the counters/desks glowing with the lack of dust and other things. Nothing was out of place.

So Vlad or the Guys in White, then. 

Or there was some new person in town after him he didn’t know about because he was an idiot for not paying attention to his surroundings more, which was basically what Sam and Tucker had been telling him for the past year whenever he bumped into poles, at first, and then it became ghosts and lurking dangers he failed to notice, and then they’d yell at him _to turn around already_ but he’d be too slow because of Lancer’s assignment and Tetslaff’s exercises from the day before and he was _still sore, dammit,_ so he would get shot right in the chest, and then he’d fly back and slam straight into a wall and not be able to brea--

It was back. It was less painful, but it was back.

Danny managed to not completely lose all of his awareness of his surroundings this time, just in case someone would enter via somewhere in the room he hadn’t seen yet and watch him. God, that was even worse than the cameras. The lights seemed to be flickering, but that could just be his head again. There was a slight pulsing pain coming from the back of his head. He probably slammed it back on the table when it started again.

The thought of checking whether he was bound to the table or not suddenly popped into his head, and he immediately regretting trying to check. A flare of pain shot from his right wrist up his arm until it slammed into his back and stayed there.

He didn’t try to move his left arm.

The fact that the pain was less than before rose back into the part of his brain that was actually functioning somewhat normally, and Danny realized that that was actually happening. Whoever was behind this all, was _testing_ something. It couldn’t be in something he ate, or drank, because then they wouldn’t be able to regulate it like this. Maybe it was something they did with the table, or the bounds. They seemed pretty much electrically wired to shock him if he tried to get out. It could be something they did with the whole room, and that’s why there weren’t any other people in the room.

Or...

Or they were testing _him_.

But with _what_?

Danny writhed on the table as a particularly nasty sting made its way up his back, settling at the base of his neck and staying there. Whether it was intentional or just his body imagining things, Danny wasn’t sure. It didn’t feel good, and that was all he cared about in that moment. It was as if his muscles had gone rigid right under his jaw as well, and the urge to clamp his teeth together to try and stop it was overwhelming.

It proved unnecessary as the pain disappeared for a second time for seemingly no reason. Danny slumped back onto the table, breathing still ragged and pulse absolutely going through the roof. 

Mind still scrambled and disconnected from the rest of himself and reality, Danny found it the perfect time for some more investigating.

Priorities listed in his head, he tried to focus on the feeling of the table pressing into his shoulders and back. It felt sticky with sweat, very uncomfortable, but not cold. Sensing cold meant he was human, not being able to feel cold meant he was ghost. He was ghost right now. Which was good.

Probably.

Danny didn’t remember how he was caught, but it was more likely to be after a particularly nasty fight. So while he was ghost. And he _still_ was a ghost. Whoever had him hadn’t seen him transform.

That didn’t mean they didn’t _know_ , though.

The cuffs around his wrists were electrically charged, as he’d learned the hard way. Moving his head from side to side made his vision swim and nausea rise, but he found that his head wasn’t strapped down or confined in something. A flare of pain shot down his neck when he tried to lift his head, but Danny grit his teeth and did it anyway. Self-preservation be damned for the moment. There were cuffs around his ankles as well. Maybe charged, maybe not. Danny kind of didn’t want to find out.

The room was smaller than a classroom, about the size of a bedroom. Maybe bigger. The floor was some sort of plastic-looking surface, the walls had an off-gray shade to it, and the ceiling was white with lamps in near the corners. The counter was still reflecting the bright light that seemingly came from everywhere, everything in the same place as it had been some time ago.

How long had he been here, anyway?

And where the _fuck_ was the door?

Another flare of pain, short and sharp, made its way through his body, and Danny had to focus to not lose consciousness entirely, despite how appealing it seemed. His breathing became even more panting-like after screaming ~~again~~ , and it sounded off, worse than it’d been. God, he hoped his lungs were okay. He kind of needed those. They didn’t feel all that okay, though. Having been so focused on not dying or passing out and figuring out where he was, the pressure in his chest had completely missed his notice.

Danny was glad it had, because now there was even _more_ pain to think about. Coughing made it worse, and tears sprung to his eyes as he tried not to. Steady and soft breaths were all he could manage as he attempted to calm himself down.

In, hold, and out. 

Jazz had shown him some ways to calm down after a panic attack, and breathing was one of them.

In, hold, and out.

Danny was sceptic at first, but after having tried it himself after one of Vlad’s particularly nasty stunts, he had repeatedly thanked her for showing it to him.

In, hold, and out.

Sam had mentioned something about a ‘pyramid of senses’, or something like that, but it didn’t seem all that appealing to try in a place he didn’t know and was trying to get away from. He wanted to ground himself, of course, but he’d better focus on himself instead of his surroundings for now. To avoid another one.

In, hold, and out.

It was odd, actually. How your own mind could betray you in such a way, that you needed to shut it off enough to reboot itself by focusing entirely on one simple task that usually required zero mental effort. Or how listing things calmed the mind down enough to turn active again, instead of running in circles, banging pots and pans together and not wanting to stop.

In, hold, and out.

And why was hyperventilating a thing? And was it a mental thing or a physical thing? How did it even work? And what caused it?

In, hol--

Oh no.

Hyperventilating. Pain. No clear source. Ghost form.

Danny paled.

Blood Blossoms.


End file.
